World-low 9% of Ukrainian citizens are confident in their government.
"Just 9% of residents have confidence in the national government, the lowest confidence level in the world for the second straight year. This is far below the regional median for former Soviet states (48%) as well as the global average (56%) in 2018," according to Gallup, a global analytics and advice firm.
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According to experts, Ukrainians have had little to feel confident about over the past decade. Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko's predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, was involved in a number of scandals and was ousted after the Maidan revolution in 2014. Yanukovych fled to Russia because he is wanted for high treason by the Ukrainian courts. During his presidency, confidence in national government was no higher than 24%.
Early in Poroshenko's presidency, there were signs that the then-new president was starting to rebuild Ukrainians' shaky trust in their leadership – 24% were confident in their government and 48% approved of Poroshenko's job performance. However, these hopes quickly faded as many Ukrainians saw the government failing to deliver on what protesters had demanded during the Maidan revolution. Since 2015, confidence has been no higher than 14%.
According to Gallup, whoever wins the election, scheduled for March 31, will immediately be confronted with a society holding a deeply rooted distrust of many national and government institutions. Skepticism toward the government and perceptions of endemic corruption are almost universal among Ukrainians.
